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The Kids Aren’t Alright

Daniel Brook’s The Trap reminds us that inequality is bad for everyone, rich and poor

By Brian Cook

Toward the end of his must-read article about race and the U.S. incarceration epidemic in the July/August 2007 Boston Review, Brown University economics professor Glenn C. Loury argues that, when it comes to understanding criminals, we must “recognize a kind of social responsibility for the wrongful acts freely chosen by individual persons.” While not entailing a denial of personal responsibility,… return to article

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    Wow. Utterly foolish. From start to finish. Wish i had back the few minutes i wasted reading this crap.

    United States Posted by wolf on Aug 14, 2007 at 12:43 PM

    Excellent. On target.

    Inequity extremes are the cause for much of violence in the world’s history.

    Remember Watts and other cities around America.

    Hope-Dreams=a future which cannot be attained by millions for many reasons.

    Darwin’s the Strongest survive is for non-thinking animals.

    I want to do my share helping those below me to catch up and pass me.

    Chrisitian America! Dream on.

    Conservatism--anti-christ-- anti- america anti- world.

    Democrats--the all (100%) american party.
    Republicans-the (20%) --only the rich party

    clarence swinney
    political research historian

    United States Posted by clarence swinney on Aug 15, 2007 at 7:28 AM

    Excellent notes: Loury’s piece was trenchant, and Brooks’ book is dead-on. All of this relates to the failed state that is America - its wholesale abdication of responsibility by its elites, the headlong rush by the supersystem to advance the rights of the rich. And so what do you want to do about it - be met with derision by idiots? Issue complaints from the ivory tower? Let’s be honest - the resort to drug war crime by outcastes, the insane pilfering of capital by finance traders, the feeble murmurings of the blogging cranks - they all relate only to the reality of our socially determined failure. There is only futility in contending with such a massively supported absurdity.  Are we stopping our emissions? Have we rolled up the asphalt for our GPS clusterbombing drones in any of our client states? Have we limited heedless profit-taking anywhere? Are we talking about how stupid this all is? Hey, have a nice day.

    United States Posted by notabilia on Aug 18, 2007 at 5:21 AM

    I’m not so sure that a guarantee of “equality” is democratic at all, but it depends on what sort of equality you have in mind. If all citizens were regarded as equally valuable members of the society, and could count on equal protection from the law (and yes, I realize that these measures already fall short for too many), that’s one thing. But to say that guaranteeing economic or “lifestyle” equality is democratic, that’s going too far. I recall a remark from Jefferson in which the best government is said to be the one that “governs least”. How do you guarantee that latter kind of equality while still governing least, or even less?

    Now, if the case had been for harm prevention by way of social investment, i.e. If the author had made the case that guaranteeing some form of social safety net to forestall squalorous poverty would improve the chances of everyone being able to pursue his own happiness, he’d be on firmer ground. It’s still debatable just how democratic that would be, but it would go down with me much easier than mandatory ("guaranteed") equality, which I think is impossible.

    Personally, I think investment in a social safety net by the citizenry (rich and not-so-rich ones) is a perfectly reasonable ask. Institutionalized neighborliness doesn’t offend me, imperfect as its attempts may have been up to now. It seems a lot less harmful than either guaranteed equality or “don’t give a damn” ignoring of other people’s suffering.

    Maybe the word “equality” is being used too loosely here, too broadly and not clearly enough.

    We could argue how far that safety net ought to extend (health? food? shelter? cable TV?), if you think there ought to be one at all, but that’s not really equality, it’s social investment in mitigating real poverty. Harm reduction (prevention?)

    It’s also a little hard for me to get too worked up over people having to “sell out” and take a corporate gig just because it’s the only way they can “keep up with the Joneses”. Not all corporations are created “equal” in terms of their objectionability quotient; broad-brushing only ignores corporations that actually do good things for their employees, customers, and neighbors, while also trivializing real abuses in a fog of generality. If the big-money lifestyle is something you don’t want to feed, good on you, but then it’s unreasonable to expect to “keep up” with a lot of luxuries.

    Health support wouldn’t be a luxury in my view, but a house is. I mean a free-standing house with a yard and all, not necessarily an apt or a flat. After living in Asia for more than 10 years, I’ve come to think that having a big space all to yourself is indeed an expensive luxury. Most Americans don’t think so, because so many of them are so well off, compared to most of the world. I have no problem with people wanting to earn luxuries, as long as they do so ethically, and even in a benighted corporation, that’s still possible.

    If you really want to undermine corporations, stop buying what they sell. No one said it would be easy. Democracy isn’t.

    Philippines Posted by Kuya on Aug 23, 2007 at 11:18 PM
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